With DC Comics’ “New 52” dominating comic shop shelves this month with more number one issues than any other time in history, other titles that are launching right now couldn’t have more competition for readers’ attention. This week, we’re going to try to shine a light on some other big titles that are launching this month, beginning with last week’s Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #1 by Brian Bendis and Sara Pichelli. It’s part of an entirely revamped Ultimate line-up from Marvel, and as a jumping on point it’s hard to do better.

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The God Complex was far more effective than Night Terrors at bringing a creep factor (I want make a comment that it also has a Crete factor, but I will refrain) to this season. There was a real sense of dread fueled by the psychological terror characters were experiencing and the revelations were nicely paced throughout the hour. I much prefer the incorporation of mythology than history into Doctor Who and seeing a Minotaur in a labyrinth will always be more appealing to me than meeting Agatha Christie or Charles Dickens.

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Photo courtesy of Phillies.com.

The Philadelphia Phillies begin their final home stand of the season this afternoon with a double-header against the Florida Marlins. Today’s games come after the Phillies clinched a playoff spot for the fifth straight year last night in Houston. Today’s twin billing will be followed by two four-game series with the St. Louis Cardinals and Washington Nationals to wrap up the year at home. These will be the ninth and tenth four-game series of the season (eight were originally scheduled and two are the result of rescheduled games) for the Phillies and they have the distinction of having won all of the four-gamers they’ve played to date including three sweeps (Padres, Marlins, Reds). It’s one of many remarkable statistics for the team in 2011.

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So the second week of the “New 52” DC Universe feels far more difficult to predict what will be good than the first. DC is releasing another 13 new number ones this week, but absent are titles that I have real confidence in like I had with Swamp Thing and Action Comics. How can anyone possibly be expected to determine which of these new books they should really buy? There’s just so many of them! To make your life easier, I’ll offer my ill-informed, not-quite-expert opinion on what titles are worth picking up tomorrow and each week during this first month of the New 52.

As far as this week goes, in my opinion there are three new DCU books that are probably going to be worth checking out and a few others I’m at least curious about. Read more of this article »

Last Wednesday, in recognition of the first full week of DC Comics’ New 52 promotion, I recommended the six five new DC titles that I thought were most likely to be worthy of your attention and your money sight unseen. Now that we’ve had a week to digest them, the question is how did I do? Undoubtably I think it’s safe to characterize the week as a monster success for DC at least in terms of PR: tons of sellouts, reprints and series being ordered in the six figures.  Overall, I can honestly say the quality of the actual product was stronger than I was expecting. I personally recommended the following series in order of expected quality: Swamp Thing, Action Comics, Animal Man, Batgirl and Stormwatch (and Hawk and Dove). So how were they in reality? Read more of this article »